Are There Any Retailers That Don't Have Sales?

December 17, 2017 2:36 PM

I'm compiling a list of retailers who don't hold sales. And it's surprisingly hard!

Maybe my googlers are broken, but I've been trying to compile a list of retailers that don't hold sales and I'm having trouble coming up with any. Apple typically doesn't really hold sales (they do a bonus offer for students where you get free headphones when you buy a Mac and they have a Black Friday sale where they take $100-ish off their computers, but that's it). Are there other retailers who hold no sales, or a very minimal number of sales each year? If you think something might not qualify, go ahead and mention it any way.

I'm particularly interested in Canadian examples, but North American retailer is fine.

posted by kate blank to Shopping (45 answers total)

I feel like Patagonia offers very minimal sales events...it's hard to get any kind of discount, except on out-of-season/last season's colors type items (and in limited sizes). It's pretty hard to find "take 40% off everything this weekend!" type events, the way you can find for Gap, Lands End, etc. Discounts they offer may be tied to you making a purchase and then receiving money off an additional purchase.
posted by handful of rain at 2:42 PM on December 17, 2017 [2 favorites]

Surely most of the very high end fashion houses don't have sales? I've never seen a sale sign in the window of a Gucci or Prada store (although stores that carry those brands, like Neiman Marcus, do have sales).
posted by cpatterson at 2:46 PM on December 17, 2017

Uncommon Goods never seems to have any kind of discount, free shipping, etc. I just took a scan through the zillions of emails they've sent this year and none mention a discount.
posted by dayintoday at 2:46 PM on December 17, 2017 [4 favorites]

It's very difficult in this day for a retailer not to have sales. JC Penney tried it a few years ago, and they gave up on the idea. The public loves and has come to expect sales, even when they know that the "regular" price is jacked up and the "sale" price isn't much of a discount.
This is an article about it.

My point is that you will likely be hard pressed to find any major retailer, other than those who have a corner on a market (like Apple), that doesn't have sales/promotions.
posted by Dolley at 2:47 PM on December 17, 2017 [6 favorites]

Trader Joe's?
posted by batter_my_heart at 2:54 PM on December 17, 2017 [15 favorites]

Patagonia has an outlet store, and they do seasonal markdowns in the brick and mortar stores. Gucci, Hermès, Chanel—they don’t have public sales in their own stores, but they do private invitation-only sales to good customers and also offload end of season merch to discounters.
posted by Ideefixe at 2:56 PM on December 17, 2017 [2 favorites]

Trader Joe's and Aldi
posted by meemzi at 2:56 PM on December 17, 2017 [2 favorites]

As far as I know, Lush Cosmetics only has one sale per year, starting on Boxing Day.
posted by exquisite_deluxe at 3:04 PM on December 17, 2017 [3 favorites]

Abercrombie and Fitch used to avoid sales, thinking it would devalue their brand. That has changed in the past couple of years, though.
posted by kevinbelt at 3:14 PM on December 17, 2017

Costco doesn't really do sales, as far as I know/remember.
posted by likedoomsday at 3:16 PM on December 17, 2017

Universal Standard doesn’t have sales.
posted by holborne at 3:17 PM on December 17, 2017 [1 favorite]

Came here to say Trader Joe's and Costco. They have similar business models and customers, so you might want to look at other retailers with similar models: stores that carry a lot of their own store brand, whose brand is all about value but also quality.
posted by lunasol at 3:25 PM on December 17, 2017 [1 favorite]

Apple does have sales several times a year, if you count putting their products on sale at other retailers (which occurs at the explicit direction and/or approval of Apple, it definitely doesn’t happen without their explicit approval). They’re a bit of an unusual case in that they are a product manufacturer as well as a retailer (like Amazon).
posted by Autumnheart at 3:27 PM on December 17, 2017 [2 favorites]

Tuft and Needle did not offer any discounts and sales until Black Friday this year. Will be curious to see if they continue that trend.
posted by jaksemas at 3:27 PM on December 17, 2017

Hermes has two sales a year, and they’re not held in their standard stores.

Room & Board does essentially no discounting either; just a few clearance items.
posted by whisk(e)y neat at 3:29 PM on December 17, 2017

I've never seen a sale at American Giant.
posted by pinochiette at 3:32 PM on December 17, 2017

If I recall correctly, places like TJMaxx/Burlington, etc. don't really do "sales" as in a limited-time promotional thing.
Everything is "on sale" from the original price (which is probably inflated) but other than eventually getting moved to the clearance rack, prices don't seem to change much from week to week.
posted by eeek at 3:34 PM on December 17, 2017 [1 favorite]

Costco discounts different items every month or so. No percent-off-everything storewide sales, but they absolutely do discounts on both regularly-stocked items as well as end-of-season or discontinued items.

Tom Bihn doesn't do discounts: "Yes, our bags are expensive, and no, we don't discount them."
posted by asperity at 3:37 PM on December 17, 2017 [3 favorites]

I've shopped at Lee Valley pretty regularly for a decade and never seen any kind of big seasonal sales. They promote new and seasonal products but there's no indication that the price has been marked down. Discontinued stock is offered at reduced prices but never promoted as sale items. The only promoted price breaks they offer are introductory specials on newly developed hand tools or every year or so, they have a small sale of tools with cosmetic manufacturing flaws.
posted by bonobothegreat at 4:17 PM on December 17, 2017 [1 favorite]

Tiffany & Co.
posted by janey47 at 4:25 PM on December 17, 2017 [1 favorite]

I just came from a Lush store and there were no sales. No percentage off; no buy one, get one. And it seemed like every item on my daughter's wish list was more expensive than the next thing. And though I was not in one today, it seems like Sephora stores don't really do sales like other places.
posted by chaoticgood at 4:42 PM on December 17, 2017

Lululemon has sales next to never. I once got a 20% off email, and had to do a double take. Maybe triple take. It happened just once.
posted by raztaj at 4:51 PM on December 17, 2017

Everlane and Room & Board both have no sale policies
posted by jessca84 at 4:52 PM on December 17, 2017 [3 favorites]

Not sure what exactly your purpose is, so this may not interest you, but before they were bought by Sears, Lands’ End did not have sales. They used to have a write-up in their catalog about how they didn’t artificially inflate prices so they could have sales. They had a loyal fan base that appreciated that.
posted by FencingGal at 5:05 PM on December 17, 2017 [2 favorites]

Shelving/furniture company Vitsoe are very clear about not having sales - or any other discounts such as bulk deals, trade pricing, etc. They emphasise this further by being closed on Black Friday.
posted by Jabberwocky at 5:07 PM on December 17, 2017 [1 favorite]

I just got a postcard in the mail about a Room & Board sale, jessca84. It's floor models and such but was explicitly advertised as a sale.
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 5:23 PM on December 17, 2017

I'm wondering if Tuesday Morning counts. Of course they also used to be run on a limited basis; now I think they're open every day.
posted by tilde at 5:27 PM on December 17, 2017

Sephora has a sale for its loyalty program members every November.
posted by praemunire at 5:32 PM on December 17, 2017

In their advertisements, The Original Mattress Factory goes out of their way to point out that they never have sales.
posted by SquidLips at 5:52 PM on December 17, 2017 [1 favorite]

Everlane says it is not a sale but they have a "pay what you want page" which I presume are overstocks/clearance.
posted by beaning at 6:02 PM on December 17, 2017 [2 favorites]

I believe Nordstrom holds only two sales per year - spring and fall.
posted by ChristineSings at 6:26 PM on December 17, 2017

There are store-wide sales, and there are markdowns/sale racks. Sephora and Lululemon both have a small amount of marked down stuff year-round, for example.

Lilly Pulitzer has two big, heavily-hyped sales a year. They don’t mark down anything the rest of the year.
posted by Metroid Baby at 6:31 PM on December 17, 2017

Deciem only does one sale a year on Black Friday.
posted by Marinara at 6:53 PM on December 17, 2017

Mountain Equipment Co-op doesn't do sales. They mark items down for clearance once there is limited stock or an item is being discontinued, but once something has been marked down, the price doesn't get put back up again.
posted by bluebelle at 6:59 PM on December 17, 2017 [2 favorites]

Athleta just about never has a sale.
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 7:39 PM on December 17, 2017

Tieks does not do sales (as far as I know).
posted by schroedingersgirl at 7:55 PM on December 17, 2017 [1 favorite]

Buddhainabucket, I got the same flyer. They do not run sales on new merchandise, ever. Every December they clear out floor models. So yeah. I guess you can call that a sale but you're not getting comparable products for a discount. You're getting a chair 3000 New Yorkers rubbed their butt on.
posted by jessca84 at 8:08 PM on December 17, 2017

Athleta has two sales a year but it's only on selected merchandise. And if you're a medium tall you better be awake at 12:01 am with you fingers on the keys.
posted by fshgrl at 11:40 PM on December 17, 2017 [1 favorite]

I’ve read that luxury brands like Gucci and Louis Vuitton actually destroy leftover stock at the end of the year because they want to maintain exclusivity and don’t want their products to ever be discounted.
posted by Bloxworth Snout at 1:06 AM on December 18, 2017

Maybe this is outside of what you're interested in, but event ticket sales is a whole retail category that doesn't really do sales. The closest thing is selling last-minute tickets at a discount right before the event, but a lot of venues don't even do that.
posted by nebulawindphone at 4:51 AM on December 18, 2017

As far asi have learned from the salesassociates, SuitSupply does not have any sales.
posted by alchemist at 5:25 AM on December 18, 2017

Someone mentioned upthread that Lush have a Boxing Day sale -- even that isn't guaranteed. Shops don't know until very close to the day whether or not the Boxing Day sale will even happen that year.
posted by fiercecupcake at 6:57 AM on December 18, 2017

The Dollar Tree.

Everything is already a dollar.
posted by a fiendish thingy at 7:16 AM on December 18, 2017 [2 favorites]

Costco (mentioned above) definitely has sales. There are some items there that I only buy on their semi-regular 3-month sale price rotation. This doesn't seem to be linked to inventory clear out attempts, and they're the only place I know that doesn't do "half price" on all xmas chocolate on boxing day.

MEC to my knowledge doesn't have sales. They will have clearance price for items they're looking to clear out, but those are only for end of life inventory. I think they might have occaisional open box discounts too.

The closest to sales at MEC would be "events" where one can get $X coupon for spending over $Y.
posted by nobeagle at 7:21 AM on December 18, 2017

Apple does have sales several times a year, if you count putting their products on sale at other retailers (which occurs at the explicit direction and/or approval of Apple, it definitely doesn’t happen without their explicit approval).

While Apple might put pricing agreements in place with retailers, they cannot force specific prices. If Best Buy decided to sell everything 50%, all Apple could do is cease to ship more product.
posted by sideshow at 10:58 PM on December 18, 2017